


Man in the Mirror

by Kestrelwinter



Series: Backlog of the Usher Foundation [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26997106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrelwinter/pseuds/Kestrelwinter
Summary: Statement of Frank Haworth, regarding a compact mirror that came into his possession.
Series: Backlog of the Usher Foundation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970380





	Man in the Mirror

**Statement of Frank Haworth regarding a compact mirror that came into his possession. Statement given by subject September 3rd 2015.**

_Statement begins_

Look, I don’t think you can help me. By the time someone actually gets to this, it’s probably way too late for me, but it’s still important. I need to tell someone. I’ve already been to the police. Denver PD was about what you’d expect, they laughed me out of the station, didn’t even call me back after the desk sergeant had a heart attack three days later

I’m getting ahead of myself.

About six months ago, my Grandmother died. Throat cancer, but she was 97. She and I weren’t very close, so sure, I found it a little odd when I got the call that she’d left me something in her will. When I got to her estate lawyer’s office, I was met at the door by a very old, very thin man whose hair was as wispy as his voice. He told me to sit down.

I did, and he pushed a small box over to me. The box itself was nothing special, brown paper, wrapped in a red plastic ribbon with a note that said “To Frank” in my Grandmother’s tight, controlled script. Like I said, we weren’t close, but she still made the effort to send me a Christmas card every year, so I recognized her handwriting from years of cards that I’d never responded to. One would sit around a few days, then I’d toss them in the trash.

Maybe I should’ve kept the cards, but I don’t think it would have mattered. 

I started to open the box when the lawyer put a damp, shaking hand on mine. 

“Wait until you’re alone, that was the lady’s request.” He said to me, his voice like a breeze through reeds on a frozen lake.

To be honest, he freaked me out a little, so it wasn’t hard to be respectful and leave. Besides, I owed her that much at least.

I got as far as my car before curiosity overtook me, I shredded the ribbon with my car keys as soon as I’d closed the door. Holding the box, I noticed that it was somehow warm. I guess I hadn’t noticed in the lawyer’s office, since the old man apparently thought 85 degrees in January was a necessary temperature, but it felt off somehow, that the box should still be warm.

I remember having a sudden thought then, that maybe the box should wait until I got home.

So I drove back home.

At a stoplight on my way, I stole a glance at the box. Nothing had changed. Of course nothing had changed, it was just a paper box. I glanced back up at the traffic light, still red, and I was stopped at a railroad intersection. These lights were notoriously long on red. I could’ve opened the box then, or I could’ve chucked it out my window. I wish I had, but no, I slowly reached down to touch the paper, and found it was still warm. My fingers came away...wet. I put my hand to my head to check for a fever or clamminess, just in case, but no. The box was...sweating. The paper didn’t have any dark spots, but the seat underneath was damp. 

That probably should’ve been a red flag too.

Anyway, eventually I got home, picked up the still uncomfortably warm box and brought it inside, and sat it down on my coffee table. My roommate was out for the weekend, something about a ski trip, I never really bothered to ask them for any details. They had their life and I had mine. 

I made myself some coffee, and sat down to open the box. Inside was another note, and I chuckled a little as I read in my Grandmother’s old script “Use it well, boy.” I set the card down and peered inside.

The object was small, metal, and circular. It took me a moment to register what it was, an old fashioned compact mirror. An odd thing for her to leave me. It was silver, and at first appeared to be engraved with simple crosshatched lines, thin as a scratch. The more I stared at them, though, the more they seemed to shift into more complex swirls and branching lines. 

Looking at it made me feel a little dizzy, so I put the lid back on the box, I picked the whole thing up, and placed it in the back of my closet, and I didn’t think anything of it until my roommate returned that Sunday. I was in my room at the time, working on a side project. I was a web developer at the time, and sometimes clients of my company would ask me to do work on personal projects as a side business. It was some extra cash my way, and as long as they didn’t tell my boss about my moonlighting, I didn’t really care if it was sent under the table. Fewer taxes that way.

I was working on my latest of these projects, when I heard a soft knock at my door. I opened it to find my roommate, back from their trip.

“Hey Frank, what’s up with this box?” They asked me, gesturing at the coffee table. The little paper box lay there, pristine and unopened, like it was waiting for something.

I stared at them a moment, then muttered some apology about leaving my stuff out in the living room and retrieved the box. I dropped it on the bed, door closed, and stared at it for a while. After maybe an hour, I decided to put it in back in the closet and not worry about it.

Nothing happened for a week, until a Friday afternoon, when I was deep in my work, our office secretary came up to me and handed me a package. 

“Scuse me Frank, the delivery guy said this was for you.” She said, gingerly placing the box on my desk before she turned to leave. I watched her wipe her hand off on her pencil skirt as she walked away mumbling something about sweaty hands.

I put the box out for trash pickup that evening, and a day later, I opened my door in the morning before a run, to find the same box, still pristine, waiting for me.

I should’ve come to you then honestly, maybe you could’ve sealed it in a vault with the ark of the covenant or whatever other weird shit you guys have here, but no, I decided that Sunday to actually handle the compact.

It was, as I had expected, warm in my hand, the metal covered in a thin sheen of condensation. I could feel my heart beat as I held the thing, that awful spiraling pattern curving every which way as I turned it over in my hand. The more I looked at it, the more it hurt my eyes, so I decided to crack it open.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t to see someone else’s reflection. The mirror held a face I’d never seen before. Older, heavyset, with a thick grey moustache. He was wearing a bowler hat, and as I turned the mirror around, to see if there was some sort of, I dunno, filter or something? I realized that my movements matched the man’s, as if this man’s face belonged to me.

I snapped it closed and tossed it in my sock drawer. I thought it must have been some trick of the light, or something. I put it out of my mind, until that Tuesday, when I was waiting in line at the bagel shop. I noticed a man standing three spots ahead of me who looked vaguely familiar, but it had been a few days by that point, and in my flurry of work the day before and my night projects, I didn’t make the connection. The man noticed I was staring at him, and gave me a curt nod, before stepping out of the shop and into the street. 

I shook my head, trying to clear it, when I heard the screech of tires and the sound of metal and glass on flesh, the sickening crunch of bones. The paramedics said he was dead almost instantly, that the driver of the minivan had been drunk, there was nothing they could do. It was around 10 in the morning though, and I returned to the office with my hands shaking. My boss stopped by my desk and asked me what was wrong. I told her, and she said I should take the day off. I happily obliged.

When I walked in the front door, the mirror was waiting for me on the kitchen counter. I picked it up and threw it as hard as I could. It hit the drywall with a thump, and fell to the ground, opening on the way down. 

The reflection was a young woman, black hair and glasses. When I saw her a few days later at the grocery store, I tried to talk to her. She thought I was crazy, some random man she’d never met approaching her out of nowhere telling her she was going to die? It must have been even more absurd to any passersby as she turned to walk away, coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed, right there in the grocery store. This time, I stayed until the police arrived to make a statement, afraid they’d think I did it.

I tried to stop checking the mirror after that, but sometimes I would find it on my desk when I turned around, or I’d find it in my pocket when I was folding clothes when doing laundry. As soon as I pick it up, it opens and a new face appears.

And each time, within three or four days, I’d see a story in the news about a grisly killing, or an unexpected heart attack, or a mysterious gas leak.

I’d heard about you guys on the internet, how the Usher Foundation collects stories and weird stuff, and I flew out to DC as soon as I could. I’m not sure what happens next, not exactly, but I figure maybe this thing is safer with you, maybe it’ll finally leave me alone, because the last time I opened it, I saw my own reflection.

_Statement ends._


End file.
